Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

IMAGES OF THE MUSIC HALL Fred Williams in London, 1952-56 Kirsty Grant All works discussed in this essay are from the 'Music hall' series In the Queensland Art Gallery Collection unless otherwise described. For those who live in the most wonderful and complex city of the world, the most fruitful course of study lies in the persistent effort to render the magic and poetry which they daily see around them. Walter Sickert, 18891 I n these words Walter Sickert, the nineteenth-century English artist > whose celebrated images described London's music halls, their spot-lit performances and spellbound audiences, testified to the magic and poetry he found there. An expatriate in London during the early 1950s, Fred Williams was also drawn to the music halls. His decision to make them a subject of his art was, he said, based on decidedly practical grounds: paying the entry fee was less expensive than staying at home, where a coin-in-the-slot gas meter had to be continually fed in order to keep warm.2 Despite the promise of glamour and entertainment offered by establishments such as the Chelsea Palace, the Metropolitan and the Angel at Islington, the music hall was, by this time, in decline. A traditionally British form of entertainment, the music hall had its origins in the tavern 'singsongs' of the late eighteenth century.3'Song and Supper Rooms' soon developed where guests were entertained by a variety of paid performers introduced by a loquacious host, who simultaneously encouraged the audience to eat, drink and be merry. Partly in response to the need for popular diversions for an increasingly urban-based and Facing page, top Fred Williams Australia 1927-82 Little man 1955-56 Etching, aquatint, engraving and drypoint on paper 23.2x13cm Purchased 1994 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant Celebrating the Queensland Art Gallery's Centenary 1895-1995 Facing page, bottom left Fred Williams Little man juggling 1954-55 Etching, aquatint, engraving, drypoint and rough biting on thin laid paper 15.4x16.8cm Purchased 1981 Queensland Art Gallery Facing page, bottom right Fred Williams 'The Boy Friend' 1956 Etching, aquatint, engraving and drypoint on paper 20.3 X 16.5cm Purchased 1994 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant Celebrating the Queensland Art Gallery's Centenary 1895-1995 industrialised population, music halls boomed during the mid-nineteenth century. During this period, publicans, the precursors of modern-day events promoters, competed with one another to lure the most popular performers and to present them in the most luxurious and palatial surroundings. By the 1950s, now in competition with television, feature films and increasingly sophisticated forms of live entertainment, the music hall was rapidly being superseded and was regarded by many as a quaint remnant of a past age. Williams's decision to depict the music halls of early 1950s London was also based on his lifelong practice, initiated during his teenage years and firmly established during this period, of drawing or painting any subject that presented itself to him. His formal art training began in 1942 when, at the age of 15, he enrolled in part- time evening classes at the National Gallery School in Melbourne. Teaching methods at the Gallery School followed a traditional pattern — students sketching from plaster reproductions of classical statuary and progressing to the life class only once this had been mastered. Williams possessed a facility to work with great speed and his drawing style was described by a fellow student at the time as 'radical, quickly discarding sheet after sheet of paper in clouds of charcoal and dust.. ,'.4 Keen for any opportunity to draw, Williams and a fellow student would often run up to the Victorian Artists' Society in Albert Street, East Melbourne, as soon as the Gallery School's Thursday night class had finished, in order to catch the last two poses there. Williams also attended informal life-drawing classes which were held in the studio of the sculptor Ola Cohn. In addition, from 1946 until 1949 he occasionally attended the Saturday morning life class conducted by the modernist George Bell, which offered the young artist a less traditional approach to art practice.5 Enthusiastic for exposure to broader artistic and cultural influences than those available in Melbourne at the time, Williams sailed for London in December 1951. With the assistance of a network of a few other expatriate Australian artists, Williams found lodgings in a boarding house at 34 Sumner Place, South Kensington, and, within one month of his arrival, a job with Savage's, a Kensington picture framing company. The meagre wages Williams earned were, in part, offset by the opportunity that the position afforded: to see and frame some very good art, including that of the impressionists and post-impressionists, and a number of contemporary British artists. This experience was complemented by frequent visits to the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Print Room at the British Museum. Ever practical and restricted by a very limited budget, Williams found an art school, the Chelsea School of Art, which was located within easy walking distance of his lodgings and his workplace.6The Chelsea Palace Music Hall, conveniently situated a few blocks away from the art school, became a regular haunt, offering warmth, entertainment and an extraordinary array of subject matter for the keen young artist. John Taylor, an artist and friend of Williams during this time 240 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965